News & Bulletins

2015-12-11

Australia / China FTA officially commences 20TH December 2015

Please be advised the free trade agreement between Australia and China will officially commence on the 20th December. As outlined most items will become duty free and for items that don’t they will phase down over a period of time with the first rate drop on the 20th December and a subsequent drop on the 1st January 2016.

To be able to claim duty free status or the reduced rate you must have a Certificate of origin or a Declaration of origin (Must have an advanced Ruling completed by Australian Customs first before Declaration of origins can be self issued). The free trade agreement will commence from on or after the 20th December with an instant duty reduction and a further reduction as of the 1st January.

Most importantly to claim Chinese origin this can be done in only 2 ways

Official certificate of origin – issued by governing bodies, must be supplied for each shipment and numerically link to the shipment

Declaration of Origin – Can be issued by the importer or supplier but ONLY once they have submitted and received an advance ruling from customs on a B659 form. If customs agree this will be valid for a period of 1 year and a declaration of origin can be self-issued. We can lodge these to customs on behalf of your client once they have provided certain information required under section G & H of this form.

For the advanced ruling there will be a fee of $95.00 for this service

Most items will become duty free when the agreement commences, but there will still be certain class of goods that will still attract duty and these can be found within the tariff schedule attached and will outline what they phased rate will be tear by year until it reaches duty free. Of those items that will still have duty payable the advantage is there will be a double rate drop within a short period of time. In this case it would be ideal for your client to consider the cost associated involved if they have any shipments arriving in close to the Christmas / new year period to determine whether they pay the current rate or N20 bond the goods into a customs controlled warehouse and then Ex warehouse them on or after the 1st January meaning that they will pay the lower rate.

Please feel free to contact our Customer Service department or your Sales Representative for any further information.